


Spinning

by bellabonbon



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 22:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10750794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellabonbon/pseuds/bellabonbon
Summary: “You remember that time when we were little? We went to the fair, and you threw up on the Tilt-a-Whirl?”Jared just stares at Evan, wondering what the hell he’s talking about.“Your parents took us. Remember? My mom was supposed to go, too, but she had to work. So your parents took us, and we got those wristbands and got to ride everything. And then… and then you ate all those nachos and threw-““Yes, I threw up on the Tilt-a-Whirl. So what?”





	Spinning

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any of these characters.

He asks Alana why she posted the alleged suicide note, but she just has some bullshit excuse about how it belongs to the “community” and how it’s important for people to understand the frame of mind that Connor was in when he got to the “desperate point of no return.” He tells her it was a really fucked up thing to do- posting that letter- but she just glares at him for a second and then keeps on with her defenses.

He walks away from her mid-sentence.

The letter’s worse than he imagined. Evan described it to him, multiple times maybe, but he never really let himself think about it as a real thing that really happened. Maybe it wasn’t Connor’s suicide letter, but it’s still very much a real letter that someone wrote. That Evan wrote. To himself. A letter that Evan wrote to himself talking about how much life sucks and how no one would even miss him if he just disappeared. Jared only reads it once, and then he unfollows The Connor Project completely. 

He thinks it’s pretty pathetic that The Connor Project is going to turn out to be the most significant thing that happened to him in his entire high school career.

He hates this. It’s not fun anymore. He doesn’t care that it made him semi-popular at school or that complete strangers on the Internet tweet him with questions or contributions. No amount of Twitter followers is worth all this. He wishes he never got involved. He just wants to wash his hands and be done with it. He’s over it.

Evan doesn’t come to school for two days, and Jared tries really hard not to notice. He doesn’t want to care or spend two seconds thinking about Evan and what an asshole he truly is. But he does notice. Of course he does. They have three classes together, and he’d have to be blind not to notice.

He takes his phone out at least six times, his finger hovering over Evan’s text chain. He never clicks it, though, probably because he’s still just really pissed off. Still, he wants to know where he is for multiple reasons, so after the second day of absence, he finally gives in and finds Zoe in the cafeteria. She’s sitting by herself, eating an apple and reading some weird book she probably got out of Evan’s room or something. She looks up when he sits down across from her, and he notices the glare right away. Still, he’s dumb enough to ask anyway.

“Hey, do you know where Evan is? Ms. Kitts keeps asking.” The last part’s a lie, but she doesn’t know that. It doesn’t matter anyway because the glare gets even sharper.

“Fuck you, Jared.”

He blinks at her, but he has enough common sense not to stick around and find out what it is that he’s allegedly done. He just leaves her alone and leaves the cafeteria altogether. His mind immediately starts racing with all of the reasons why she might be so hostile. He tries to tell himself that girls are just batshit sometimes, but he knows it’s probably something more than that.

But maybe she’s just being a good girlfriend. He did, after all, tell Evan to fuck off, and he called him an asshole… Evan’s probably tattled all about that, making him out to be some jackass or something. Completely absolving himself of any wrongdoing whatsoever of course. Maybe Zoe’s just making it clear that if Evan hates him, so does she. 

Yeah, maybe.

He tries to keep himself distracted after school. He does his homework like a responsible person, and then he fucks around on Netflix until his mom gets home with pizza. Normally, he’d rather do just about anything than eat family dinner, but he’s just bored and desperate enough to buy into it today. They sit at the table with pizza and breadsticks, and he just eats and listens to his parents talk about the bills that are due. He doesn’t care about any of it, but whatever. He can only hide in plain sight for so long, though, because his mom eventually turns her attention to him. 

“So I saw on Facebook that your Kickstarter met its goal. That’s really amazing, huh?”

He takes a huge of bite of pizza and sort of half-shrugs/half-nods.

“I didn’t get a chance to donate. Are you guys still collecting money?”

He swallows the pizza against his own judgment and shakes his head. “No, it’s fine. I think they got everything.”

He doesn’t want to talk about the Kickstarter or The Connor Project or any of it. He just wants to remove himself from the picture completely. He doesn’t want his parents donating money to some bullshit orchard that has literally _nothing_ to do with its eventual namesake. 

He wonders what would happen if he just confessed everything right now.

His parents would be furious. His dad would probably lose his shit because that’s what he does. He flies off the handle and overreacts, and finding out about all of this crap would probably send him over the edge. His mom would freak the fuck out and immediately call Heidi, and then shit would just go from bad to worse. So he keeps his mouth shut. For everyone’s sake.

He stays in his room after dinner, only half paying attention to whatever documentary is playing on his laptop. He doesn’t even know why he’s trying to watch something that requires an attention span he clearly doesn’t have. Not tonight anyway. He halfs the screen and checks his email. There’s nothing interesting, some update from camp about early bird registration for next summer and a junk email about weight loss. He closes his email and opens the link to the Kickstarter out of habit. 

He doesn’t know why he does it. He doesn’t want anything to do with it anymore, but his fingers still take him there anyway. They’re now $2,877 over the goal. It’s kind of mind-blowing, but it also makes him feel a little sick to his stomach. Skype very annoyingly lets him know that Evan’s online, and just like with the Kickstarter, his fingers almost initiate a call automatically. He stops them, though. Evan’s made it super clear that he doesn’t give a shit about him, so fine. It’s not like they’re friends anyway. Not really. So whatever. It’s fine.

Jared shuts his computer down, grabs his music, and finally just goes to bed.

Evan’s not at school the next day, either, and okay, so it’s starting to get pretty weird. It’s not like he’s _concerned_ or whatever, but he needs to know what’s going on. Friends or not, their lives are kind of intertwined these days, and if some shit’s going down, he has a right to know. 

Since Zoe’s obviously not willing to help, he goes to the only other person who might have some kind of clue. Alana’s obviously still kind of pissed at him for the suicide note argument, but at least she doesn’t tell him to fuck off like Zoe did. He asks if she’s heard from Evan, and she gets kind of snippy but answers anyway.

“He wasn’t answering my texts, so I went to his house. His mom said he’s sick.”

“Sick? What kind of sick?”

“I don’t know, Jared. She’s your aunt, why don’t you ask her yourself?”

“She’s not my…” He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. It’s not even worth it. “Sick like stomach bug or sick like having a mental breakdown?”

That obviously gets Alana’s attention, and he realizes right away that he’s probably made a mistake. It’s not like it’s some big secret that Evan’s weird or whatever, but not everyone knows that the mental breakdown shit is an actual real possibility. His mom’s been taking him to a shrink ever since they were little kids, but it’s not like that’s common knowledge. 

“Oh, no! Do you think we need to form a support group or something? I’m sure the community would be very glad to help form some kind of intervention if he’s having problems.” He can’t tell if she’s genuinely concerned or just really desperate for something to do. Either way, no.

He shakes his head. “I didn’t mean a literal mental breakdown. I just mean like… stress. From school. And whatever.” He shrugs because what the hell is he even saying right now. “Forget it. I’ll get my mom to find out what’s going on.”

He has less than zero intention of putting his mom on the case, but it gives him an excuse to bail on Alana. Hopefully he’s managed to diffuse the situation enough to keep her from snooping around and making things worse. He can’t do this anymore.

 _Where the hell have you been?_

He sends the text from the first floor bathroom. He’s already late for English, but he doesn’t care. He might just skip altogether because he has no interest in whatever Wuthering Heights lesson awaits him. He hides in one of the stalls and sits on his backpack because he’s definitely not gonna just like lounge on those nasty toilet seats or something. He leans his head back against the tile wall and wonders how much of a loser this makes him- sitting on the floor of a bathroom stall, all alone, just waiting for someone to text him back. Eight minutes pass, and it doesn’t happen.

_Seriously. You can’t just disappear like that. WTF!_

He cringes as he remembers a particularly uncomfortable section of the “suicide note”- the one Evan himself wrote. He doesn’t want to put those thoughts out there, though, so he just hangs on to his phone and watches it expectantly, waiting for it to buzz with a response. It never does.

_Look, if you’re pissed or whatever, fine. But people are asking where you are, and if you don’t answer me, I’m gonna get my mom to ask your mom._

He’s not. He’s not sure what would have to happen to get him to that point, but he lets the threat hang out there for exactly twenty seconds before he opens the text chain back up and prepares to type something particularly hateful. His phone buzzes before he gets it out. 

**Trust me, you don’t want to do that.**

_Dude WTF!_

**My mom knows.**

His heart immediately stills, and he reads the text four times before it sinks in. His mom _knows_?! His head dips to check under the stall doors at the same time he hits the call button on his phone. 

“I don’t want to talk about it.” That’s all he gets as an answer- no hello, no kiss my ass, no nothing. Not happening.

“Have you lost your fucking _mind_?!”

“I… I just don’t want to talk.” Evan sounds nervous and awkward, and Jared can easily picture him holding the phone with one hand and tugging distractedly at the hem of his shirt with the other. 

“Well, that’s too damn bad! Are you fucking crazy?!” Jared hisses the hysteria, still nervous that somebody might pop into the bathroom unexpectedly and discover him hiding in a stall.

“Jared, I… She… I told her. She knows.”

“What the hell would ever possess you to tell your mother?!”

He has to strain to hear the barely mumbled next part, and even when he hears it, he thinks it’s got to be a mistake. “The Murphys know…”

It has to be a mistake because there’s no way in hell that Evan just said that the _Murphys_ know. That’s just… He shakes his head and pulls himself into a standing position. 

“I’m coming over.”

“Jared, no, I-“

He hangs up on him, effectively shutting down the protest as he lets himself out of the stall and heads for the hallway. He doesn’t even care if anyone sees him leaving. He just walks down the hallway and out the front door of the school. He doesn’t even realize that his chest feels like it’s about to explode until he steps outside and into the fresh air. 

He doesn’t have his car because his dad got pissed off about something a couple of days ago and took his keys, so he has to run (okay, walk kind of quickly) the whole two miles to the Hansens. He’s not necessarily the athletic type, so he’s tired and out of breath by the time he finally gets there. He feels like he might puke or something, but he doesn’t because that would be way too dramatic.

Heidi’s decade old Toyota Corolla is nowhere in sight, not that he expects it to be. She’s always at work or school or somewhere, so it’d be really crazy if she was randomly there in the middle of a Thursday. He doesn’t even bother knocking, just goes up to the front door, finds it unlocked, and lets himself in. The house is in its normal type of chaos- not dirty, but pretty cluttered and not very pristine. He heads through the living room and down the hall to Evan’s room. He doesn’t bother knocking there, either.

“I told you not to come here.” Evan’s on his bed, not doing anything at all. Just lying there, staring up at the ceiling like he isn’t supposed to be in chemistry right now.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Jared takes in a deep breath, mostly because he’s really, really tired, but also to control his temper. “I mean, I know that question is kind of a given for you, but for real, have you lost your fucking mind?”

Evan glares at him. “Shut up, Jared.”

Yeah, like _that’s_ gonna happen.

“How the hell did the Murphys find out?”

Evan looks away, back at the ceiling and then toward the opposite wall. Jared almost yells at him, but he finally mumbles an answer. “I told them…”

“You _told_ them?!”

“Stop repeating me.”

“Why the hell would you _tell_ them?! Do you even…” He shakes his head in shock. “Do you even realize how fucking _stupid_ that is?!” His mind starts reeling, and he leans against the doorframe to balance himself. 

“Why do you even care?” Evan sits up, and his voice has the same cutting edge that’s been there for the past couple of months. 

“Because we could go to jail!” Or something. Seriously. “This whole thing is fraud! Or extortion or something! Like for real!”

His mind starts flying, thinking of all the possible crimes he’s implicated in. They took _money_ from people for an organization that’s just a _lie_. $50,000! Wait, $52,877 as of last night. That’s like… got to be illegal.

“My dad is going to kill me. Like literally _kill_ me. Why would you tell people?!”

“I didn’t…” Evan starts fiddling with the edge of his comforter. “They don’t know you had anything to do with it.”

“You didn’t tell them about me?”

Evan shakes his head, and Jared lets out a breath of relief. It’s short-lived, though, because his brain flips right back into overdrive. It doesn’t matter if Evan told them or not. If somebody starts investigating, there’s all kinds of evidence right there in plain view. Emails written on his computer, Skype conversations about the emails, text messages… Why would he ever get himself into something like this? He’s so fucking _stupid_.

“Calm down.” It’s laughable really. Evan telling _him_ to calm down. What kind of ironic shit is that? He’s too shocked to even respond. “Just… It’s my fault. Not yours.”

“What did they say?” Jared lowers his voice, trying very hard not to freak out because he knows how unproductive that is.

Evan looks down at his lap, and Jared can practically see the devastation all over his face. He should feel bad for him- he does a little bit- but he’s also really pissed off. 

“They just…” Evan lifts a shoulder. “They just hate me, I guess.”

“Zoe knows I helped.” He realizes it out of nowhere, remembering her reaction to him yesterday. “I asked her if she knew where you were, and she was just like _fuck you, Jared._ ” His Zoe Murphy impression is terrible.

“She just doesn’t like you.” 

“Well, that’s blunt.”

Evan looks nervous again. “Sorry… I just…” He ducks his head and rubs anxiously at the back of his neck. “She just…”

“Doesn’t like me?”

“… Yeah.” 

Jared nods. “Right.” Talk about getting straight to the point. “Well, guess what. She’s not the shiniest star in the sky, either.”

Evan looks up from beneath his eyelashes, and Jared doesn’t know whether he’s crossed some line or what. But is there really a line where pettiness is concerned? He’s never done anything to Zoe Murphy. It’s not his fault that she has next to no personality. Jesus, no wonder she liked Evan for a second.

“She doesn’t know.” Evan finally gets out a full sentence. “No one does. I won’t tell them.”

“Are they going to press charges?”

Evan looks uncomfortable and twists from his place on the bed. “… No?” It’s totally a question, and it doesn’t make Jared feel any better. It must be evident on his face because Evan frowns and tries to expand. “I mean, I don’t think so… It’s not like… I mean, they’re not really talking to me, but I don’t think so?”

Another question.

Jared lets out a heavy sigh and takes it upon himself to move further into the room and join Evan on the tiny little twin bed he’s had for as long as Jared has known him. They sit there staring at each other, and silence hangs over their heads as they both think about the situation and how they ever let it go this far. It wasn’t supposed to go this far. It wasn’t supposed to even _happen_ , but it definitely wasn’t supposed to go this far.

“You remember that time when we were little? We went to the fair, and you threw up on the Tilt-a-Whirl?”

Jared just stares at Evan, wondering what the hell he’s talking about. 

“Your parents took us. Remember? My mom was supposed to go, too, but she had to work. So your parents took us, and we got those wristbands and got to ride everything. And then… and then you ate all those nachos and threw-“

“Yes, I threw up on the Tilt-a-Whirl. So what?”

“You threw up, and your mom said you couldn’t ride anything else because you were sick. So you… you started crying, and I said… I told your mom that I was just… I was just having so much fun and could you please keep riding. And she said okay.”

“Of course she did. You always got your way.” It’s true, too. Evan could literally get anything he asked for- mostly because everyone just regarded it as a miracle if he ever actually opened his mouth and formed a sentence. 

Evan’s face turns a little pink, and he ducks his head. “Remember we went in that little haunted house thing? Like we had to sit in those little cars and ride around and look at fake spiders and stuff?” He doesn’t look up, and Jared wonders where all of this is going. There’s enough of a pause there that he wonders if he’s supposed to actually answer the question. Finally, though, Evan finishes up. “We were in there, and you said… you said that I was your best friend.”

“I was like seven.”

Evan frowns and then kind of shakes his head a little bit. “That’s why I didn’t tell them about you.”

“You didn’t rat me out because of some puke-induced bullshit I spouted in first grade?” 

“You’re really an asshole sometimes.” Evan actually looks up for that, and Jared can actually see the hurt on his face. He tries not to notice.

Still, he checks himself, and he makes a real effort to soften his tone. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Evan’s face turns from pink to red, and he twists his lips like he’s struggling to make words actually happen. He probably really is, though, so it’s not even a stretch. Finally, though, he manages to say, “I’ve never had friends, Jared… like ever.”

And… there it is.

Jared doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing _to_ say. He can’t sit there and contradict it because it’s true, and he knows it. So he just lets Evan talk.

“That day at the fair was like… my favorite day. Because every other day just like, they all just sucked.” Evan’s fingers start twisting up, a classic sign that he’s either about to freak out or that he’s trying really hard to calm himself down. “So I just always, I always just remembered that day. Because it was fun, and I just felt… happy, I guess.”

Jared remembers that day, too. Not in like vivid detail or whatever, but he remembers throwing up, and he remembers Evan sweet-talking his mom. He and Evan _were_ friends back then. Sure, it was pretty forced by their moms’ friendship, but Jared remembers having fun when Evan would come over or whenever they’d go out together with their moms. 

But then second grade happened, and for the first time ever, he and Evan were in the same class at school. And suddenly, Evan seemed a whole lot weirder than he did at home. Sure, he was always nervous and quiet and fidgety, but before that, Jared could always just make up for it by talking enough for both of them. In school, though, all of Evan’s little quirks were like a giant bullseye, and Jared knew better than to purposely make himself part of that target practice. 

He wasn’t the most popular kid in the class, either, but people weren’t as bad to him as they were to Evan. Jared could at least present himself as somewhat normal. Evan was just that weird kid, and there was really nothing he could do about it. Jared knew that, so he distanced himself. He even started being a little mean himself, mostly to erase any sort of friendship or connection that the other kids in their class might spot. Evan never fought him on it. He never even asked why Jared started acting like that. He just took it, like he just knew he had to accept it or something. 

They still saw each other outside of school sometimes. Their moms were still friends, and Jared still remembers the way his mom totally tore into him that one day when she overheard him call Evan a freak. He was a little more careful after that- especially when parents were around, but he mostly kept his distance unless otherwise forced. Their outside of school interactions started dropping off a little, too. Heidi started working two jobs, so there wasn’t as much time for weekend lunches. Jared started going to camp and was rarely around in the summers. Their families were still friends, but it got a lot easier to just remove himself from whatever forced friendship he and Evan were supposed to have.

“Anyway… it’s stupid.” Evan shakes his head quickly, like he’s trying to erase whatever he’s just put out there in the universe. Jared doesn’t know what to say, so he just says nothing. 

A long, uncomfortable silence hangs between them. Evan just sits there tugging at a string on his comforter, and Jared just sits there watching him. It’s literally the most awkward three minutes of his life, and that includes the time his dad decided it was a good idea to check up on his browser history.

“Life just… hasn’t sucked so much lately.” Evan finally speaks out of nowhere, but he doesn’t lift his head, and Jared has to strain to actually understand him. “Like… it’s even been kind of good, you know? And I just, um, I just… liked it, I guess. So I sort of just let it all be real, even though, you know, it obviously wasn’t. I just… I just wanted it to all be real. And that’s why I did all this. I just, I just fucked up so much, and I hurt so many people… But I wasn’t trying to.” 

He finally looks up at the end, and Jared sees that his eyes are shiny. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to do if Evan starts crying or something. He can’t deal with that. “I know you weren’t.” He eventually answers, and he even forces the most closest thing to a halfway encouraging smile he can manage. Anything to keep him from crying.

“I won’t tell anyone about you.” Evan swallows, and his eyes flutter nervously. “I swear.”

Jared just nods. He trusts him. If he ends up getting caught, it won’t be because Evan throws him under the bus. “When are you coming back to school?”

Evan’s frown deepens, and he mumbles, “Hopefully never.” Jared just stares at him, not sure if he’s being serious, but Evan says, “My mom said I have to go back next week.”

Jared nods. He doesn’t even really think about his response. He just sucks in his lips and then says, “Maybe I can skip tomorrow. Wanna go ride go-carts at McKinley’s? I mean, it’s no Tilt-a-Whirl, but I can eat a shit ton of Mexican food and try to puke anyway.”

Evan blinks at him, and then he almost smiles. It’s a start.

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are very much appreciated! Thanks for reading!


End file.
